Does the Great Library still make sense?

[nbarclay]

Thanks to disease, we're running in the neighborhood of ten turns behind our original schedule for trying to add workers to speed up construction of the Great Library, which translates into somewhere in the neighborhood of seven turns' delay for the completion date. Further, tech trading seems to be going at a fairly fast pace, and with human beings deliberately coordinating research efforts, it is not at all difficult to envision our world's outpacing what's typical in even an Emperor-level SP game.

We're pretty definitely looking at 40+ turns to build the Great Library, if only because it will take a while to improve enough tiles before we can add any significant number of workers. By that time, with the right trades, a strong research civ that beelines to it could have Republic. And depending on how diverse and well-coordinated research among the other civs is (and, of course, on whether peace holds), trades could take the leading civs into the medieval era around the same time.

Vox will get one medieval tech free when it enters the medieval era, so if our deal with them is still on at that time, that's one of the three techs the Great Library would give us that we'll get anyhow. That could set up a situation where we might get as few as just two or three techs from the Great Library before it becomes obsolete, especially if the tech leaders elsewhere get sneaky enough (e.g. "I'll give you Theology and Education now, and you give me Engineering and Invention after the Great Library goes obsolete"). So with the rate research is progressing at, it's rather questionable whether we would actually get much value from the Great Library.

If we were willing to "bet the farm" that we could get the Great Library, and to suspend all research past Literature in the meantime, going for the Great Library could be either a nice coup or an unmitigated disaster. But that's too big a risk, especially after our delay. And if we keep pushing research hard while we build the Great Library, I'm starting to seriously doubt whether the Great Library would provide enough advantage to be worth the cost (not just in shields but in delay to our other development).

Nathan

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Instead of Great Library, we should build the Colossus.

[asleepathewheel]

I think I agree that the Library is losing its value rapidly.

I honestly didn't anticipate the level of trading among teams, I expected at least one team to be eliminated by now and the others to be more standoffish. Teams are playing much more timidly (perhaps its the high stakes of the time investment) than they would in a normal PBEM, much more conservatively, thus we might see the industrial age before firing a shot or raising a sword.

What would the goal be if we don't go for the GL?

Go for a different ancient wonder? NOne really apeal to me at this point, though the colossus is nice, however its been awhile since availble so it might be being built (or prebuilded for stealthiness) elsewhere.

Go warmongering in the ancient age? Would be fun, and to spice up the game. We could have Vox give us cash (to appear neutral) and pay GoW to fight with us against Lux.

[Harovan]

There are 3 things to evaluate and compare.

1. The benefits the GL gives
2. The price we pay for it
3. The probability, that we can get it

Given the circumstances, that appeared in the past few turns (tech trades, contacts, disease), the benefits of the GL are decreasing, the price has become higher (if we go for it, our growth will be delayed by another 10 turns = 2 cities), and the probability due to the delay is sinking.

Yet five turns ago, we found an acceptable compromise and the project seemed quite doable. But we have been taught a lesson, that it's dangerous to depend on floodplains, and that sophisticated plans may be contradicted by bad luck.

It hurts, to say no, after so many invested time and passionate discussions, but sometimes it's the best one can do. Stop the project, is my vote.

[Shiber]

- One 2vs2 or 3vs1 war on the mainland would be enough to change all our estimates and make the GL much more profitable.

- We are certainly not going to continue to give all our techs to Vox for free after the GL is built. When they'll see the GL completion screen on their save, I'm sure that they'll understand.

- Our only competition for the GL is Legoland. The four civs on the mainland will not go for a wonder right now, given the tension between those teams (they've already settled the entire landmass, according to what RP told us!). They'll prefer building barracks and military units over building wonders.
Vox is too weak to build anything as big as a wonder.
We are left with Legoland, whom we know (according to the F11 screen) has had a start that is not as good as ours, and has been surprise-attacked by barbarians and had to poprush a defender, which ought to have cost them. Furthermore, chances are that they won't try something as radical as joining workers to their wonder city to complete it faster. IMHO, chances are that we're the only crazy folks around actually attempting such a plan.

- Given the improving relations between Vox and ourselves, there's a better chance than before that they would agree to give us workers for future benefits. Unless I've missed something and they've already received this offer and denied it, I think we should present this offer to them.

[notyoueither]

I think it is premature to assume that we will come by too many techs too easily. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but we could easily see a door closed in our faces at anytime.

[nbarclay]

If we were talking in terms of making Vox full enough partners on the Great Library project that they would clearly stand to benefit more from it than they do from a "give each other all techs discovered" arrangement without the Great Library, I would view the odds of bringing Vox in as good. But simply offering Vox a couple techs in exchange for workers means they lose out on the current arrangement (since under the current partnership, they would get whatever we discover anyhow), and I have a hard time imagining Vox view that as a positive development. And even assuming we get a couple workers from Vox, it will take time to improve tiles to use them.

Also note that if the main continent is in fact running out of room to expand, that significantly increases the odds of foreign galleys visiting our shores, and they won't necessarily be empty. That might make settling our land mass quickly more important than it would be otherwise.

As for Lego, their score says they can't be doing too badly. Yes, a lot of that comes from their capital's already having grown another notch (since they seem to have built a temple quite some time ago), and yes, a loose build pattern, especially coupled with another temple or two elsewhere, would also give them a much higher score per city than we have. But even allowing for that, they're probably competitive with us in number of cities.

The point that a war on the main continent could slow down research is a good one. But anything that would slow down research significantly elsewhere would also give us real potential to pull away with a significant tech lead if we don't count on the Great Library for our techs. As I've said before, I rarely have much interest in the Great Library in SP (except perhaps for denial purposes) because to use it, one has to become a tech follower rather than a tech leader.

So if peace and tech trading continue, the Great Library probably won't give us nearly as much as we were hoping for, while if war significantly hinders research in the rest of the world, relying on the Great Library for our techs would very likely cost us the opportunity to pull away with a nice tech lead. For that matter, even if the other civs stay at peace but turn out to be significantly more crowded than we are, counting on the Great Library for our techs would deny us the chance for a tech lead. Pretty much any way things go, its value is likely to be a lot more limited than what we assumed in our original projections.

Nathan

[alva]

I even think the pyramids could be more usefull, even from a denial point of view.
If someone on the "main" continent is able to get his hands on it, is likely to become the most powerfull civ on it.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I think it is premature to assume that we will come by too many techs too easily. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but we could easily see a door closed in our faces at anytime.

Opportunities come as they go. Assuming that we would not need or benefit from the GL is just as dangerous as assuming that we will get the GL and halting all research after we get Literature.

[Shiber]

Nathan: regarding the tech leader vs. tech follower, if techs spread around so quickly in this game, then the difference between the tech leader and the tech follower would be that of a mere few turns.
Alva: I've been having similar thoughts... but right now, I think we should start on the GL and only switch later on.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Shiber
Nathan: regarding the tech leader vs. tech follower, if techs spread around so quickly in this game, then the difference between the tech leader and the tech follower would be that of a mere few turns.
Alva: I've been having similar thoughts... but right now, I think we should start on the GL and only switch later on.

The difference might or might not be just a few turns. If other civs have similar size and a similar degree of freedom to focus on city improvements, the difference will be small. But if we have more land to begin with (or the same amount of land but a lot more cities crammed into it) and can also focus more on city improvements and less on military, or if we start out bigger and use our military to pile on still more of a size advantage, the difference between us and second place could be considerable.

Also note that two civs have to have a tech before the Great Library civ gets it. So if there is a significant tech disparity in the rest of the world, the Great Library's owners can find themselves significantly behind first place. Thus, the overall advantage we get researching ourselves is the lead we get over second place plus the difference between first and second place among the rest of the world. (And at times, even a little more than that, since the Great Library civ doesn't get techs until first and second place make their trades so both have the same techs.)

Granted, building up a tech lead without the Great Library is nowhere near a sure thing. But the possibility that we could do it reduces the "expected value" (i.e. the weighted average of all possible values) of the Great Library considerably.

I have no objection to going for a wonder in Hurricane, and if events start to unfold in a direction that makes it look more worthwhile, we could even start piling in workers later. But for the moment, I'm a bit more inclined to focus on REXing rather than invest two or three settlers' worth of workers (depending on whether or not we get Vox's help) going all out for the Great Library.

[nbarclay]

By the way, note that after disease, EotS can build a settler or two instead of workers without having to shift to lower-growth tiles for extra production. That makes now an even better time to focus on settlers over workers, especially since we have a couple more locations where our new settlers can take advantage of wheat.

[DeepO]

I still value the GL, how could I not be. But that doesn't mean I don't see the problems here. Indeed, tech trading is picking up, but I predict this will stabilise quickly, simply because new techs can't be learned when not enough beakers are available. Republic would take us 30 turns right now to research, and we're 2nd best in research worldwide. Sure, this will get a bit better, but as long as there is rexing, the beaker output of civs is going to be minimal.

So, even if right now techs flow easily, people will get a lot more protective of their valuable techs later on. There are 2 implications of the GL: first of all, the one who gets it can keep up (albeit a bit behind the tech leaders) spending no gold, leading to an estimated 2000 gold (which is deminishing, as we're still receiving techs for free). Secondly, the GL leads to even greater sharing, and balance between teams, because once the GL-team has a tech, everyone wants to be the first to trade it to those who don't have it yet. If 2 teams are in the middle of a war and thus don't trade, 2 other possible tech trading partners are standing by.

This last effect leads to an even more frantic research pace, which benefits 2 civs: the GL one (as it doesn't have to invest anything), and the best researcher after the GL has done its share. If we could get both advantages, we will launch ourselves in a comfortable tech lead by the middle-end of the middle ages (provided we get that far with this game).

Some more thoughts about it: I think part of the reason why I still want to go for the GL is that it would deny the wonder to anyone else, who might not have the kind of research potential we have. I don't want to start to think on how to deny techs to another GL-team, if we could get it ourselves.

Most importantly, I see 2 reasons why this comes up again, and people are starting to hesitate on the GL: 1) we were unlucky with disease, and therefore are delayed by an estimated 7 turns. 2) the tech deal that Vox and us now have wouldn't benefit from the GL.

With 1) I can agree, it was unfortunate, but that's the game. If we need to adjust because the past 4 disease turns have cost us too much, okay. But, I don't think everything is lost, I dare to say we've got most cities at this moment (maybe 2nd to ND), and we've got some 15 turns left before the next boom in cities. By that time, we should more or less have built all workers needed, and Cyclone would be ready as a pump too. Sure, we might temporary lose the advantage of pure rexing, but we won't get behind (far), and in 20 turns time we again should have the best expansion potential. I don't consider it a problem, for it to become one we would need to be hit with disease for another 4 times or so...

2) Is a problem: we might not get in front with the deal with Vox, but we'll manage to keep up anyhow, even without the GL. But there are a couple of problems here: Vox needs this deal more then us, their crappy research isn't going to net us anything, all we can get from them is what they got from others. Sure, they're giving us most now, and we are taking advantage of them now, but we should all realize that the longer this deal goes on, the worse it will get for us. So instead of scrapping the GL for the current deal, I would rather scrap this deal for the GL. It would give our independence back, as now we're getting to relying on Vox

Last PS: I'm not sure we're going to see foreign galleys on our coasts soon, at least not before we are able to take most key spots on this continent of ours. If I count, our continent isn't terribly big, where as the main continent seems to be bigger. Before they are able to expand to all corners, we will have gotten all our ground, and will be looking to more land. Don't forget that while we more or less can Rex unprotected (which we aren't doing at this moment, but which is possible if it needs to be), the mainland civs need to have 2 spears or so for each city they found. That in itself is going to limit their growth potential tremendously.

DeepO

[Shiber]

Nathan, IMHO tech leadership in the ancient age isn't as important as you describe it. The best thing about the GL is that it allows us to keep up in research while stockpiling gold, which can later be used to rush libraries, for instance. By the time the GL will become obsolete, we'll have more libraries than anyone else and we'll quickly become the tech leaders in the Middle Age, which is much more valuable than being the leader in the Ancient Age.

[nbarclay]

The big question is how our larger strategy is going to fit together. If we want to invade someone (presumably not one of the tech leaders) in the time between Republic and Feudalism, the Great Library could let us focus on gold for warrior-to-swordsman upgrades and maybe later WC-to-knight upgrades while ignoring research for a while. In that scenario, our investment would be in enlarging our nation so we'll have a larger research base when we do start researching, and we would pretty definitely get our shields' and workers' worth out of the Great Library. (Although the delay does eat significantly into the potential profit.)

The other option is to play an almost pure research game, try to beat the rest of the world to Military Tradition by a significant margin, and stomp with cavalry upgraded from WCs. In that case, I think we'd be better off focusing on doing our own research so we can get Education and Banking (and thus start investing in universities and banks) earlier. If we can build a tech lead, the savings from earlier universities and banks could easily outweigh the savings the Great Library would provide. (Note that trying to get Leo's would also be a key part of such a strategy, although with China and the Arabs in their prime in that period, they may end up with enough leaders to make it hard for anyone else to build wonders.)

So whether we should go for the Great Library or not probably depends on which direction we're leaning in terms of overall strategy.

Nathan